Theater: Distant Thunder

"Behold my Lear," proclaimed Shaw, with his usual modesty, of this
melancholy farce. Not for him the inevitable comparisons with Chekhov
and Congreve. No, he would recast Lear as Captain Shotover, a wily old
man of the sea, sensitive to every political current, each distant drumroll
of thunder on the cloudless eve of the Great War. Surrounding the
Captain are his two bewitching daughters, with their foolish suitors, and
one young woman, Ellie Dunn, who is wise and innocent enough to read
the Captain's prophetic mind. In Shaw's...